


The Key of Yuuya

by Chromata



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Music, Post-BBL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 16:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12987945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromata/pseuds/Chromata
Summary: It's been three months since that day.





	The Key of Yuuya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [figooza990](https://archiveofourown.org/users/figooza990/gifts).



> Hatoful Secret Santa, anyone? Anyway, I was delighted to get figooza990! (Hopefully this isn't too much pain for a gift, but Sakuya gives me a lot of feels.) Happy holidays, whatever you celebrate!

               It had been three months since the events in the underground portion of St. Pigeonation’s.  Three months since Tosaka had died.  Three months since Kawara locked himself away.  Three months since Yuuya… Yuuya…

               Sakuya had locked his grief away from the prying eyes of his parents and everyone else who expected him to be a “good Le Bel”.  He was no Le Bel, he knew now, but he needed that power just a little longer, just long enough that the Charon Virus could be purged from Kawara’s body.  Kawara’s day didn’t seem too far off, given that none other than Iwamine Shuu had been forced into assistance alongside the scientists the Le Bels had hired in fixing this nightmare.  (The irony did not evade Sakuya, nor did the desire to kill the partridge.)  Tosaka’s day was too far away for Sakuya to take, however; the scientists were unsure they’d ever be able to repair her brain, no matter the leaps made in neuroscience.

               No scientist had to tell Sakuya that nothing could be done for Yuuya.

               Thoughts of his brother now produced a pull toward the piano in the ballroom; when his parents were out he forced that yearning down, but the minute his parents left he would give in.  Who was he playing for?  The room was empty except maybe for Albert, but Albert wouldn’t tell a soul of what he saw Sakuya doing in the ballroom.  Was he hoping against hope that his song could reach Yuuya?

               …he always had liked it when he heard Sakuya play the piano…

               Mother and Father… no, Mister Le Bel, were out now, giving him the chance to indulge his desire.  He crept to the ballroom, the slightest shame still at the back of his mind; he was no Le Bel, but he had always been told that he shouldn’t indulge this desire, no, need to produce music.  It was below the aristocracy, this purest of joys, or at least that’s what he had been told.  One more joy of divorcing himself of the Le Bels, he reminded himself: the comfort of the cool ivory and dulcet tones of the piano would no longer be below him.

               Yuuya had given him the key to his golden cage.  He could set himself free whenever he wished.

               He began to play.  This one was Chopin.  Opus 28, number four, a prelude in E minor.  Despair in musical form, Sakuya thought; the fact that that was the first piece that came to his fingers spoke volumes.  Chopin had requested the use of this piece at his funeral. 

               Had Yuuya gotten one?  If he had, Sakuya had never been told.

               As the final chord of the piece died away the doorbell rang.  Albert passed by and answered the door; a few minutes later he returned with a large envelope.  “Master Sakuya, a letter has come.”

               “Thank you, Albert.”  The envelope was from the labs working toward the destruction of the Charon Virus.  Stunned, he opened it and read the papers enclosed.  It seemed that their most recent round of tests had destroyed the virus in all samples.  Everything was ready for Kawara to be brought back to the world of the living, and in less time than anyone expected.

               “What is it, Master Sakuya?”

               “The research has been a success.”

               “I’m glad to hear that.  I’ll let you be.”  With that, Albert left the ballroom.

               He touched the keys again.  This fixed one thing, the easiest thing to fix.  Tosaka would take years.  Yuuya was too far gone.

               A tune began to unfold.  Mendelssohn, opus 102, number four: one of his Songs Without Words.  G minor was a good key for the weight of grief, the song an expression of traveling a melancholy maze.  The name some human editor had given it, “The Sighing Wind”, entirely missed the impression Sakuya got from the piece.  It flowed from him, his consciousness of reality fading as he tried to find his way through the maze in his mind with his fingers leading the way.  Maybe, just maybe…

               “Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane, haven’t I told you that playing the piano is lowering yourself?”

               The final notes escaped as he tried to figure out when his mother and father, no, Mister Le Bel, had returned.  He couldn’t figure it out, however.  “Father.”

               “Answer me.”

               Somewhere in his mind a thought lurked, a thought of a golden key dangling from a string, bloody feathers falling around it.  The Hawks had agreed to fund Kawara’s revival as part of reparations for the incident.  Tosaka’s revival was years away no matter how much money the Le Bels threw at matters.  There was no use in waiting.

               “Sakuya!  Answer me!”

               “You need to know something.”  The key slipped into the lock.

               “You didn’t answer me.”

               “My brother told me something before he… you know.”  It turned, the lock disengaging.

               “Your broth—Sakazaki?  He was no brother of yours; pay no mind to the lies of a mongrel.”

               “Your egg was smashed, Mister Le Bel.”  The door opened.

               “Did I not tell you to pay no mind to—“

               “My blood is not yours.  The scientists can prove it.”  With that, he set himself free.

               _Wherever you are, Yuuya… thank you._

 

               “What key is this in?”  Sakuya grumbled to himself.  A tune had been stuck in his head since the day he had left the mansion for the last time, but it was something he had never heard.  Transcribing it at the piano in the Kawara household, where Sakuya was staying to assist Kawara Ryouta’s ailing mother in his stead, hadn’t helped him figure out what key it was in.  Not knowing the key meant not knowing the key signature, and that was useless for player and composer alike.

               He played through what he had written again, hoping for a hint.  Instead he got a transient impression of someone far away, waiting for the day they’d meet again and yet hoping it wouldn’t come any time soon.

               The piece was atonal, in music theory terms; Sakuya had figured out that much.  However, Sakuya had identified it for what it was, and he scrawled it in the form of the title at the top of the page.

               **_Song in the Key of Yuuya_**

**Author's Note:**

> Chopin, Op. 28, No. 4 in E minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwPzHJ-Pic  
> Mendelssohn, Op. 102, no. 4 in G minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFxHur2MAJE


End file.
